Tips sought on how to preserve Apple juice in pop bottles ?

[gray_bale]

Its looking like...

1 - Fill bottles and place lids on loosely.
2 - Place them in a big stew pan of water at 70°C
3 - Check the temperature of the innermost bottle with a thermometer. Once it has reached 70°C, leave for a further 20 minutes, keeping a steady temperature of 70°C.
4 - Remove bottles, tighten caps and lie bottles on their side to cool.

Now using glass pop bottles is no problem, but I was thinking about the plastic PET bottles, but their plastic melting temperature is 76°C

Slightly too close to the 70°C pasturizing temperature.

Any advice/experiences on using PET.

[Thomzo]

To preserve apple juice in a plastic bottle, just pop them in the freezer. No need for all the faffing about. Leave a gap at the top of the bottle for the juice to expand in the freezer. When it defrosts, it will separate so shake hard as it defrosts.

Zoe

[gray_bale]

Unfortunealty my freezer is far too small. So I need to go down the bottle route.

[MKG]

That seemed an awfully low melting point for a plastic, so I checked. Unless there is a magic low-temperature version of PET, it's actually around 250 degrees Celsius (I'm still checking).

So you shouldn't have a problem.

Mike

EDIT: I think you're being confused by the transition temperature of PET, which is 70 degrees - and all that means is that the bottle will get a little more "floppy" above that temperature. It certainly won't melt.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

What Mike says. You can't heat much above the transitision point, PET becomes less ordered and more fluid in its character. The upshot of this is that the bottle may stretch under pressure when being heated and the walls become thinner & weaker, but you should be OK a few degrees above 70, particularly for something that is not carbonated.

I miss glass pop bottles. Though not the contents: anyone remember Corona Cherryade? What was that all about?

[MKG]

A bit more info for you. PTE is dimensionally stable up to 220 degrees C if it has been pre-treated. However, depending upon the original purpose of the bottle, you may get some shrinkage in hot water.

Some PET bottles are made oversize and then filled with hot product. The amount of shrinkage is known very accurately, so the bottles end up the "right" size. Other PET bottles are filled cold. These are the ones that are not pre-shrunk, so you may notice shrinkage if you have them.

Fruit juice sold in PET bottles is hot when the two come in contact. Carbonated drinks are cold-filled.

Mike

[boboff]

what about milk containers, would they work?

[MKG]

what about milk containers, would they work?

You want to boil a cow?

Mike